Mayor Bloomberg's victory this Tuesday cost him $85.8 million. Divided by the 5,557,059 votes he received, that's $154 per voter, more than 10 times the cost-per-ballot for his Democratic opponent Bill Thompson. But though he beat out Thompson by a margin of 51 percent to 46 percent, voter surveys show support for Bloomberg slipping in New York City's Chinese communities.
According to statistics in the New York Daily News, Bloomberg surpassed Thompson in the boroughs of Manhattan, Staten Island, and Queens, while he trailed Thompson in Brooklyn and in the Bronx, where Thompson won by a 23.7 percent margin.
In areas with large concentrations of Chinese voters, Bloomberg's popularity remains high. Except in Sunset Park north of 50th Street, where Thompson inched past him by 148 votes, Bloomberg won clear majorities in Chinese communities, including Flushing, Manhattan Chinatown, Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst, Boro Park, and Sunset Park as a whole. In some areas, Bloomberg won twice or three times as many votes as Thompson.
However, compared with the 2005 election results, Bloomberg's popularity with Chinese voters is clearly on the decline: In Flushing, Bloomberg lost 92 votes; in Sheepshead Bay: 1,668; in Coney Island: 2,279; in Sunset Park south of 50th Street: 4,082; in Boro Park: 2,412; in Sunset Park north of 50th Street: 410; and in Manhattan Chinatown: 2,820. Bensonhurst was the only place where Bloomberg's vote total exceeded that of four years ago.
Bloomberg's falling vote totals may be due to population movements in the above areas, but the increase in Democratic votes compared with 2005 is clear evidence of his loss of support. In Coney Island 2,312 more voters went Democratic, and in both Bensonhurst and Sunset Park south of 50th Street Democratic totals climbed to 900. However, it is worth noting that in Chinese neighborhoods such as Manhattan Chinatown, Flushing, and Sunset Park, overall voter participation decreased: in Chinatown by as much as 3,059 votes; and in Sunset Park north of 50th Street by 2906 votes.
